“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Erin Niemela: We are Better Than This
Americans will remember Monday, April 15, 2013 as a day in which unspeakable violence took the lives of three people and wounded at least 153 after bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line. Thousands of miles away, Iraqis will remember this same Monday as a day in which violence claimed the lives of at least 31 people and over 200 injured after multiple car bombs detonated in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, and several other areas. Afghans will remember this Monday as a day in which a ghastly roadside bomb in the Zabul province killed seven and wounded four other human beings. These are the headlines, only for this particular Monday, and we can be sure some lost lives have yet to be reported.
We are better than this.
Humanity is better than this. We are a resilient, adaptable species with a propensity towards community and kindness. Yet, we continually find ourselves locked in a dangerous spiral of retaliation, fueled and fanned by the winds of “justice” that creep into every speech, every condemnation, every epitaph, and every time responsibility is taken. We have the capacity for unspeakable violence, yes, but we also have a profound capacity for love.
Katrina vanden Heuvel: Don’t confuse truth-tellers with traitors
Next week marks the 10th anniversary of an event that celebrates truth telling in the public interest and honors the legacy of Ron Ridenhour, a man not often remembered, who irreversibly changed the course of history.
As a soldier in Vietnam, Ridenhour had started investigating troubling rumors of a terrible war crime committed by U.S. soldiers. In 1969, after returning home, he wrote a stunning letter to Congress and the Pentagon in which he described the horrific slaughter of innocent men, women and children. Ridenhour was a key source for the series on My Lai that Sy Hersh wrote for the Dispatch News Service, which later earned Hersh the Pulitzer Prize. The story of the massacre provoked widespread outrage and was a turning point in U.S. public opinion of the war. Ridenhour himself went on to become an award-winning investigative journalist before his sudden, tragic death at the age of 52.
At a moment when the government is aggressively clamping down on information, it’s worth remembering – and honoring – the importance of whistleblowers like Ridenhour, who tell us the hard truth even when nobody wants to hear it.
Over the winter, I heard military commanders and White House officials murmur in hushed tones about how they would have to figure out a legal and moral framework for the flying killer robots executing targets around the globe.
They were starting to realize that, while the American public approves of remotely killing terrorists, it is a drain on the democratic soul to zap people with no due process and little regard for the loss of innocents.
But they never got around to it, leaving Rand Paul to take the moral high ground. [..]
digby: Chris Hayes passes an important test
I always watch a lot of cable news (or have it on in the background) but when a major story hits, I watch it more intently and tend to move around between the stations all day to see how they are covering it. Yesterday, everyone was on pretty good behavior even Fox which one could tell was having to bite its collective tongue not to use the occasion to criticize the president and push the Islamic terrorist scenario. Considering how tough that obviously was for them, they did an admirable job. [..]
Mostly what I hate about this coverage is the maudlin and somewhat unctuous posing (at least it feels like posing) among the pundits and anchors. It makes me yearn for the days of Walter Cronkite. (I know, that makes me old — so shoot me.)
There were exceptions. I thought Scott Pelley on CBS was remarkably professional in reporting the minute to minute during the day yesterday. And among the evening anchors, I though Chris Hayes hit just the right notes. As an analyst as well as a reporter he asked probing questions with an appropriately serious mien, but he didn’t seem to be giving a performance like so many of the rest of them did.
Valerie Strauss: Study: School Reform in 3 Major Cities Didn’t Pass the Test
Many people paying attention to corporate-based school reform in recent years will not be surprised by this, but a new study on the effects of this movement in Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago concludes that little has been accomplished and some harm has been done to students, especially the underprivileged.
The report looks at the impact of reforms that have been championed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and other well-known reformers, including Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, and, in New York City, Joel Klein, the former chancellor of New York City Public Schools and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It says:
The reforms deliver few benefits and in some cases harm the students they purport to help, while drawing attention and resources away from policies with real promise to address poverty-related barriers to school success…
Deborah Weinstein: In Obama’s Budget, Poverty Initiatives Face an Uphill Battle
There are certain facts of life reflected by the FY 2014 Obama budget proposal: first, anything really worth having is going to be hard to get; and, the regrettable corollary – some things you don’t want are a lot closer to reality.
There are new and even historic anti-poverty proposals in this budget. But the better they are, the more they fall into the “hard to get” category. On the other hand, Social Security cuts in the form of smaller cost-of-living adjustments could far more easily become real. [..]
While the job creation and economic development proposals are well designed, the scope is not adequate to meet the needs of the current weak economy. The president stated that his budget shows it is possible to reduce the deficit and invest in economic growth at the same time. But the Senate budget, with more revenue and more Pentagon savings, demonstrates this possibility more clearly.
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